A little birdie whispered to me... The following is from Stephen Schwartz, A "stalinist into Trotskists into Left-Communist into Anarcho-Communist into Neo-con" who is a regular columnist for the rightwing "Weekly Standard" and is buddies from everyone we love to hate: "Hitchens and I once had a discussion with Wolfowitz about Shachtmanism, and he indicated he knew all about it but had never been involved in anything of that kind. He seemed only to have had contact with them in their final incarnation, after the Vietnam era. His development was more academic; he is a character in Bellow's book RAVELSTEIN as a disciple of Bloom. "Perle I don't know about as to Shachtmanism. "I'm going to interview both of them for my next book, which is a critical examination of the Jewish/Israel lobby, written as a companion to my Islam book. I'll ask them about these issues. But my sense is both of them emerged too late for that. Neither of them was ever a leftist; they were only Scoop Jackson cold war liberal Democrats. "Wolfowitz, by the way, was never a "Likudnik." Israel is not the big issue for him and he is not warm to the general approach of the lobby to U.S. affairs. The caricatures put forward against him are pure Jewbaiting. The formative experience for him was convincing Reagan not to maintain Marcos in power. Further, he is much more of a serious intellectual than either Perle, who is a political operative and functionary, or Feith, who is a lawyer. Wolfowitz has been attacked by the Powellites for being too cerebral and philosophical."
-- Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy